


Fall In

by EvilMuffins



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Autumn, Fluff, Multi, Polyamory, brief mention of childhood neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 00:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: Slow to feel pain thanks to his training at school, Henry often times found that he had a somewhat delayed reaction to the cold as well. He hadn’t yet noticed just how brisk the day had turned, until he felt the warmth of Ricken’s slender back pressed up against his chest.---Henry just can't understand why Ricken keeps showing up for hexing lessons, long after he needs them.





	Fall In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SaraJaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/gifts).



> This was a charity commission through a hurricane relief fan auction community on Dreamwidth.  
> Thank you so much for giving me a chance to write The OT3!

 

“Golly!” Henry exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “If that training dummy had been one of the Risen, we’d both be covered in itty-bitty little bits of rotting flesh right now!”

After only one hit from Ricken’s tome, the training dummy had been nearly obliterated, leaving only a few singed tufts of straw lying amidst the grass to remember it by.

“Gee,” Ricken replied, rubbing bashfully at the back of his neck. “You really think so?”

Although Ricken had initially began to turn a little a green whenever Henry would speak so casually of guts and gore, lately he had been taking it in stride. Henry took a certain amount of pride in this.

“Yeah,” Henry agreed, wandering over to pluck a bit of burnt straw off the ground, wedging it between his nose and upper lip to create a mustache that wobbled as he spoke. “You’ve gotten kinda really amazing at this lately. I don’t think there’s much else that I can teach you, you know? Why don't you try asking Miriel next time”

Henry wasn’t quite certain as to why Ricken kept showing up at the tent that he shared with Sumia, asking for magic lessons during nearly every moment of downtime they could spare from the war. Although his fundamentals had been shaky at first, the young mage had been quick to learn, taking to Henry’s instruction like a crow to black. He hadn’t even needed to lock him away in a dark room all by himself until he got it right, unlike had been the way at Henry’s old magic school.

Ricken’s face fell. “Oh.”

That was the other thing Henry struggled to understand about Ricken- Why ever would someone be disappointed that their lessons had come to an end? Henry had been delighted to have been finally free from school. The Plegian army had been loads more fun.

Before Henry had time to question, a familiar voice pipped up from around the tent they practiced behind.

“Oh, there you two are!”

“Oh hey, Sumia!” Henry greeted, finally letting the straw fall away from his face as the pegasus knight approached.

“I thought that if I found one of you, I’d find the other.” Sumia smiled, as warm the pie the she held.

“Mmm,” Henry hummed, trotting over to get a better whiff.  “That smells even better than a freshly burnt corp-“

“Henry!” Ricken hissed. Although it was true that he had become more used to Henry's comments, every now and then he still seemed to have a crossed line. Old habits died hard, however (a quip which Henry had to bite his tongue to keep from saying).

Sumia giggled softly. Although Henry’s morbid turns of phrase had once caused her stomach to churn, much like as was the case with Ricken, lately she had been taking the quirk as oddly charming more often than not. “I’m happy you think so, seeing as I made it for the two of you.”

“Oh wow! That’s really swell of you, Sumia!” Henry exclaimed, before adding, “Err, how did you get it all the way over here from the kitchen without dropping it?”

Ricken looked as if he were about to strangle Henry with his eyes, which he might well have been able to do, considering how far he had advanced in his hexing ability.

“Actually, just this morning Ricken here hexed me so that I’d be unable to let go of whatever I held until I spoke the magic word.”

Henry blinked at Ricken, “You came up with that all on your own…and you still think you need more training from me? Don’t tell that hex to Tharja, or we’ll never be able to tear her apart from out tactician again! Nya ha!”

“I-it’s nothing, really…” Ricken said, more to the leaf he crunched beneath his boot than to Henry. More and more of them had been falling these past days. The seasons tended to sneak up during the distraction of war.

If Henry wasn’t mistaken, the boy’s face had turned nearly the color of some of the ruddier leaves. Wasn’t it late in the season for a sunburn?

An odd look crossed Sumia’s face then. It was knowing, similar to the one she wore when Henry swore up and down to Naga that he hadn’t been the one who had caused an alarming number of ravens to fly over their tent, each and every one dropping fresh daises at Sumia's feet just as she stepped outside of their tent for the morning.

“The pie looks amazing, Sumia,” Ricken attempted to change the subject. “What kind is it?”

“It’s just a simple pumpkin, really,” Sumia replied. “My mother used to bake one at the start of Fall each year. I would have made something different, but I wasn’t sure if there were any traditional pies for the season in Plegia or not…”

“I actually wouldn’t know!” Henry chirped. “My momma was never all that big on feeding me, and then after I was shipped off to magic school, the size of our dinner was based on how well we did, or how big we screwed up! I don’t think anyone in my year ever worked up to earning dessert… Oh! But one time, I did earn myself a second helping of gruel! I think it might have been during Fall, because it was getting awfully chilly in that little room… It was hard to tell without any windows, of course! Sure wish I had had a blanket, though…”

A soft gasp escaped from Sumia, her brows knitting in distress. “Henry, that’s…”

“Why don’t we go inside and cut some of this pie, okay?” Ricken suggested, reaching out to take it from Sumia.

“Oh, that’s right!” Sumia exclaimed when the pan didn’t budge from her grasp. “ _’Horsefeathers!_ ’”

Unfortunately, Sumia spoke the release word at the exact moment that Ricken tugged, having momentarily forgotten about the spell in the distraction of Henry’s story. He stumbled backward, slamming into Henry’s chest, toppling the two mages- pie and all- into the sizable pile of leaves that Frederick had raked up earlier in the day. The colorful foliage puffed up all around them as they hit the ground with a crunch that hopefully came only from the leaves.

“Ooph!” Ricken groaned as the wind was momentarily knocked out of him. “Geez I’m sorry… Henry, are you okay?”

Henry remained uncharacteristically silent as Ricken attempted to untangle himself from the pile of limbs, leaves, and splattered pie that they had become.

“Oh dear…” Sumia lamented. Whether more for the dessert, or the two men on the ground, neither of them were entirely certain.

Slow to feel pain thanks to his training at school, Henry often times found that he had a somewhat delayed reaction to the cold as well. He hadn’t yet noticed just how brisk the day had turned, until he felt the warmth of Ricken’s slender back pressed up against his chest.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Henry said, throwing his arms around the smaller mage’s waist, stopping his attempt to rise. “Nya-ha! I though so- you’re really warm! Cozy and toasty, like a wolf cub!”

“C-cut it out, Henry!” Ricken squirmed in his grasp. If Henry wasn’t mistaken, he seemed to be growing even warmer by the minute. “I- Ouch!”

“Are you hurt?” Sumia asked, crouching down to take Ricken’s hand, where a thin red line ran across his palm from knuckle to wrist.

“It’s just a scrape,” he explained quickly, “I think there’s a stick or something under the leaves…”

Before he had thrown in his lot with the Ylissians, Henry hadn’t given much thought to the pain of others- or rather, he had, but it had been nothing more than in the form of short-lived entertainment. Briefly, his mind flashed back to the last time he had gotten nicked in battle. An arrow had grazed his cheek, drawing blood. It had stung no more than a pinprick, but after their victory, Sumia had kissed the area right above where the wound had been after Lissa had healed them up. It had made Henry's heart flutter a way that killing and hexing never did.

That was what you were supposed to do at times like this, wasn’t it?

Gently, Henry took Ricken by the wrist, guiding his hand away from Sumia’s, and to his own lips.

Ricken let out a sound that Henry thought awfully similar to the one that occured when one of his raven friends would capture a juicy mouse. The boy turned to Sumia in panic.

Rather than come to his rescue, however, she merely smiled softly. “Ricken, we know about your feelings for Henry, and it’s okay. I promise.”

“We do…?” Henry asked, while thinking back to all of their lessons together. _Oh._ Well, that sure would explain things. “Of course we do! We think you’re swell too! Right, Sumia?” Henry asked, hugging Ricken even tighter.

“Well, yes. I suppose that we do!” the knight nodded.

Ricken, for all that he was flustered, still managed to light up at the admission.

“Neat-o! Then you come here and get in on this too!” Henry insisted, pulling Sumia from where she knelt, deeper into the pile of leaves, sandwiching Ricken- and half of a pie- in between them.

“Henry, the pie!” Sumia wailed as she toppled.

“It’s fine!” Henry assured with a giggle, leaning over Ricken to kiss Sumia on the cheek, not wishing to leave his fiancée out. “I’ll reverse time on it later.”

The three laid in peace for some time. Ricken’s broad hat- always a size too loose- had blown a bit away from them, leaving an unobscured view of his freckles, just beginning to fade in the shorter days of the season, while leaves had tangled their way into Sumia’s thick, wavy locks. Henry thought that despite the volume of blood running through their veins, and the air filling their lungs, the both of them were very lovely.

Even once he hexed the pie back into order, Henry was certain that it couldn’t be as warm and sweet as whatever he felt between the three of them in that moment.

 


End file.
